Knitting is soothing, actress Parker says

Mary-Louise Parker has knitting needles in her hands these days instead of cigarettes.

"It's soothing," the 37-year-old actress says in the September issue of Rosie magazine. "And it gives me something to do because I don't smoke anymore. You can't do both at once."

Parker, who won a best-actress Tony this year for "Proof," said she took up knitting while she was a student at the North Carolina School of the Arts.

While killing time on the set, she makes hats for her boyfriend, actor Billy Crudup, sweaters for her sister and clothes for friends' babies.